Carnival of Cryptids (Anthology to Raise Funds for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) (Kindle All-Stars Book 2)

by Bernard Schaffer

  Carnival of Cryptids

  by

  The Kindle All-Stars

  Edited by Laurie Laliberte and Bernard Schaffer

  Cover Art by Keri Knutson and Tony Healey

  Published by Apiary Society Publications

  Copyright 2012 Bernard Schaffer*

  Get Your Copy of this Book Digitally Signed + Personalized via Authorgraph

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. No reference to any real person, living or dead, should be inferred.

  *All stories contained herein remain the property of the individual authors, all rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  1. Carnival of Cryptids (Pts. 1-9) - Bernard Schaffer

  The Cove

  2. ABC - Tony Healey

  The Squid

  3. Six Gun Diplomacy - William Vitka

  The Jungle

  4. Where is Captain Rook? - Jeff Provine

  The Lost

  5. The Cage - Simon John Cox

  The Island

  6. The Ogopogo Club - Susan Smith-Josephy

  The Loch

  7. Oh, My Darling of the Deep Blue Sea - Doug Glassford

  The Real

  8. The Paring Knife - Matt Posner

  Night Train

  About the Kindle All-Stars Project

  Biographies

  "It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way."

  Warren Ellis, Planetary

  1. Carnival of Cryptids - Bernard Schaffer

  There's a large red tent ahead of you with the sound of squeaking horns and cymbals crashing through its wide open flaps. The crowd's loud laughter and cheering stops sharply when a canon turns in their direction and fires with a deafening boom. An entire section of the audience cries out and covers their faces as colorful streamers and confetti bursts out of the canon in a puff of harmless white smoke. One woman continues screaming until she starts to laugh self-consciously and picks small bits of paper from her hair while her children and husband cheer and poke and clap their hands.

  The whole place smells of popcorn slobbered with butter and hot cotton candy, the kind that spools out in vats of blue and red, sparkling with chunks of sugar.

  You have money enough for both, and your stomach growls in protest as you continue on.

  Signs attempt to corral you toward the tent. Large wooden placards with peeling images of lions and elephants. Skimpily-dressed girls doing high-leg kicks that give you just a glimpse of the ruffles between their legs. A handsome ringmaster with a tall top-hat and expertly waxed mustache who smiles broadly as he extends his hand toward you.

  You walk past all of it.

  You step over cables strung across the wet grass like snakes, back behind the cages that stink of animal dung and half-eaten buckets of feed. Clowns race past you to get to their dressing room tent, yanking off their red rubber noses and tossing their wigs as they hurry to get ready for their next act.

  Finally you arrive at the rear of the site, a dark tent, the last tent, and you reach into your pocket just to make sure its contents are close to your hand. "Hello?" you call out.

  There's no answer. Of course there isn't.

  You take the two coins out of your pocket and rattle them in the palm of your hand, the silver making a distinct metallic ding. You shake the coins until something stirs within, coming closer and closer toward the dark threshold until finally you stand face to face with a monstrous-looking figure. His grey hair, long and tangled, hangs down over a pair of round purple spectacles, the rest of his face covered by a thick furry mustache and full beard braided into two prongs, like upside-down devil's horns. Metal sheaths cover his fingers like dragon's claws that stretch from their sharply pointed tips to the tops of his knuckles, their surfaces engraved with runes and symbols. He taps them against the brass-head of his cane and says, "Go away."

  "I won't," you manage to say. "I've come for the show."

  "Turn around and walk back to it."

  "Not that show," you say. You show him the coins, both of them silver Washington quarters and rattle them again, their sound unmistakable.

  He flinches at the noise and holds up his finger to make you stop. "So you've brought the coins," he says. He holds out his hand with their spiky metal tips that wiggle together as you drop the quarters into his palm. He sweeps his hand aside dramatically and announces, "Come in, come in and explore our exhibition of oddities! Feast your eyes on Esmeralda the Tattooed Lady and her lover, the Dog-Faced Boy. Stand in horrified amazement at Mother Nature's cruel jokes and the wonders that science dare not examine!"

  You do not move. When he finally stops speaking, you swallow stiffly and say, "I didn't come to see those things."

  "Whatever do you mean, child?"

  You fish in your pocket again and produce an intact turkey wishbone, showing it to him and waiting until he finally extends his hand and allows you to drop it on top of the coins. "There's more," you say. You quickly pull out the spool of black thread from your mother's sewing kit, the tooth of a dog that you bought for a nickel, a rusted nail from your shed in the backyard and finally, a crumpled up tissue.

  He cocks an eyebrow above his spectacles as he looks down at the tissue and you quickly say, "From my little sister's last bloody nose. She's whiny and impatient but I reckon she's innocent enough and that's her blood, just like the rules say."

  He inspects the assortment of items in his hand and says, "Someone has instructed you well."

  "My grandfather was here, many, many years ago. He told me what to bring. He said you'd be here."

  The man lowers his glasses to look down at you with cold, piercing eyes as black as the sea. "And what is it you came to see, my dear?"

  You swallow hard and say, "The creatures. I want to see the creatures."

  The Cove

  He throws the tent's flap open and you see it is perfectly dark within. You suddenly fear that he might be one of those men, the kind you've heard do bad things to children, but your grandfather said it would be like this and that the man would not harm you, but adults lie.

  Adults lie and adults leave and adults die without warning on dark, rainy nights when they are supposed to be coming home from work with dinner but never arrive. When suddenly, a lazy, half-forgotten conversation earlier that day about packing your lunch becomes the most important conversation you will ever be forced to remember.

  Adults lie and you brace yourself as the man reaches for you, but all he does is take your hand in his own, careful not to scrape you with his sharp metal claws. "Do not let go of me and do not touch anything. If anything calls your name, do not respond," he says.

  "I understand."

  He pulls you in to the tent, hurrying through a winding path so quickly that you find yourself running just to keep up. Your shoes brush along the tent's canvas floor and you hold up your hand, afraid you are about to go bursting through its back wall. Something claws at your arm, its nails scraping your flesh and you cry out but do not stop.

  Twigs snap under your feet and wet leaves cling to your ankles just below the cuff of your pants and the top of your socks, sticking to your legs. You run until the ground turns soft and mud sucks at your shoes, threatening to yank them from your feet and fling you into the darkness.

  A cold wind bat
ters your face as you clutch the man's metal fingers with all your strength, even as your sweaty palms make it slippery and difficult. A woman laughs directly in your ear and you leap in fright and then, in the distance, something whispers your name. It calls you to it. It wants you to come.

  "Nearly there," he shouts over his shoulder. "Don't stop now!"

  You see a light ahead, a fisherman's lantern rocking back and forth through a thick cloud of fog. The sea's cold breeze batters your face and you taste salt on the air and inhale the smell of freshly caught fish. You can now make out boats in the distance and hear their bells clang as they drift out to sea. "Where are we?" you say.

  "A nasty little piece of business, if ever there was one." He leads you down the docks toward a small building, a pub with crumbling wooden panels and windows soaped over by a century of harbor grime. "There are many legends in this part of the world, and some of them are even made up. Are you certain you want to stay?"

  "I do," you nod.

  He pushes the pub's door open and says, "Then let us introduce ourselves to Dove's Cove."

  2. ABC - Tony Healey

  The damp October chill that lay like a spell over Dove Cove invaded my woolen jumper and wrapped its icy arms around my ribs. I’d driven for hours, cocooned in the artificial heat of my trusty Ford Estate for too long. The sudden cold made me shiver. I slammed the car door shut and hurried to the entrance of the B&B. There was a light on over a sign that said DOVE’S NEST BED AND BREAKFAST above the front door. Below that I was glad to read VACANCIES.

  There was a kind of waiting area inside, with brochures for the local area on a table to the right, and a locked security door up ahead with a buzzer. I pressed the button and waited with my arms crossed. It was warm inside, but not so warm as the car had been—or seemed. I was thankful when a portly woman, probably in her fifties, opened the door.

  “‘Ullo there,” she said, pleasantly enough. She had a big flushed face bordered by slightly damp-looking red hair that fell in ragged curls. She stood with her hands in the front pocket of an apron covered in grease spittle from a million fried breakfasts. I extended my hand, but she didn’t take it.

  “Uh...hello,” I said. “I was hoping for a room tonight?”

  She regarded me with small eyes set a little too close together. “Oh?”

  I nodded.

  “We got a room you can ‘ave, but you gotta pay for two nights,” she said.

  “I can do that,” I said.

  She looked me over, then with a nod of her head said “Yeah,” before leading me inside.

  I shut the inner door behind me as I followed her through to a desk with a telephone and visitor’s book atop it.

  She licked her thumb and forefinger and flicked through to a blank page.

  “What’s yuh name?” she asked.

  “It’s Robert Dent,” I said.

  I watched with curiosity as she wrote my name in perfect looping script. When she got to the end of writing Dent she looked up at me with a smile on her face.

  “Dent. Just like yuh get on a cah!” she said, then proceeded to let out a mighty laugh that knocked me back a few seconds before I joined in with her, uncomfortably.

  Chuckling to herself she took down the rest of my details.

  “Two nights stay gonna cost yuh seventy quid, and yuh wanna be up by eight the latest if yuh be wanting a hot breakfast,” she told me. “We dain’t wait for no dossers.”

  I assured her it wasn’t a problem, paid her in cash and asked for a receipt which she gave grudgingly. I then went out to the car to fetch my overnight bag. In truth, I’d hoped to only stay the one night. But I’d arrived late, and the cost of the whole trip was covered by the Hopton Herald anyway, so I thought why not? I made sure to lock the car, then went back inside. The landlady (she told me her name was Elsa) showed me to my room. She said there were only two other guests staying there at that moment, and both were due to check out the following morning. It was off-peak season for them, even with the Halloween parade in town.

  “There’s a parade?” I asked her as she unlocked my room and led me inside.

  “Yuh. They do it evuh year,” she said with a little sigh that I took to be either exasperation or boredom on her part. Still, I was intrigued.

  “When is it?”

  “Tomurruh,” she said.

  I nodded as she pointed everything out to me.

  “There’s yuh bed. There’s yuh bathroom. There’s yuh TV but it dain’t got many channels.”

  Eventually she left me alone, dropping a set of keys into my palm.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Goodnight.”

  She grunted and walked down the hallway. I shut the door and locked it from the inside.

  I went to the window. She said it was a sea-view, but there was nothing to see beyond the dim light of streetlight facing the gravel car park out front. The whole town was black. You couldn’t even make out the lights of distant houses. Nothing. For all I knew, I might’ve driven into the twilight zone. I shut the curtains, brushed my teeth, stripped down to my underwear and climbed into the bed. I was beat. I’d gone half-crazy trying to find the place, and now just needed to sleep.

  But it didn’t come easily. Perhaps I was just wired from the drive, though I think it had more to do with my reasons for being there. I laid there a long time listening to the wind whistle through the eaves as it whipped around the B&B before I fell to a deep and dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  I woke around half six (more from years of habit than anything else) and got freshened up in the cramped little bathroom with its shower that fell with little more power than soft rain, and a hot tap that gurgled and spat when I filled the sink to shave.

  I went to the window with a towel wrapped around my waist and drew back the curtains.

  Now I could see the Cove, a small town clutching the curved edge of a natural harbour. There were more boats nestled within the harbour than I expected for such a small town. It was a fine day, with clear skies and bright sunshine. I dressed and went downstairs for some food. The breakfast half of B&B’s is always a bit hit and miss, and I wasn’t expecting much. But I was pleasantly surprised to find Elsa and who I took to be her daughters all operating in tandem like four red-headed replicants. They cooked up a pretty decent meal. One of them filled my plate with bacon, eggs, hot buttered toast. Another kept my cup full with instant coffee and too much sugar. I’d beaten the other transitory residents of the Dove’s Nest down to breakfast, and by the time I finished they still hadn’t shown.

  “Sleep well?” Elsa asked me as she took my empty plate.

  I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Yes, thanks. Really comfortable.”

  She sort of snorted, as if to say Yeah, told yuh so, and trotted off. I got up and went back to my room. In my travel bag I had my dictaphone, batteries, spare notebooks and pens. I never take a laptop or anything with me. I prefer to work longhand when I’m out on the road. I stuffed the dictaphone, a fresh pad and several pens inside my jacket and left.

  On my way out I passed by one of Elsa’s daughters at the front desk. She polished the top of it in a distracted, slow-motion.

  “Uh...excuse me,” I said. She looked up. “Do you know where I might find the police station?”

  She looked a bit surprised by that. “Eh? Yuh wanna report sumink?”

  I shook my head. “No, no. I’m a reporter. I want to talk to the Chief Constable about something.”

  “Dunno,” she said with a slow shake of her head, biting her fat bottom lip.

  I managed a smile, thanked her for nothing and left.

  * * *

  I walked from the Dove’s Nest into town. It only took me twenty minutes or so. I was glad of the sun, although it was bitter cold, and I was glad of the wind rushing in off the sea. There was a main street with shops running downhill through the middle of town, toward the Cove. Everything else sort of ran to either side of it, as if it were the spine of the place. It was just after ei
ght by the time I walked into a little café at the top of the street and asked directions to the police station.

  The old man behind the counter eyed me suspiciously, but helped me find my way. I walked back up the hill, took a left turn, and followed a little street to its very end where I found a low-slung building with several panda cars parked out front.

  I found myself wondering if they even had a cell in there for undesirables, or if it doubled-up as the broom cupboard.

  There was a sergeant on duty, reading a paper. I showed him my press badge, with the Hopton Herald logo at the bottom. He nodded, told me to wait, and left to get somebody. I took a seat and waited no more than ten minutes before another sergeant joined him.

  “Press are you?” he asked me. He had dark grey hair and a deep tan. I noticed his markings were that of a Chief Constable.

  I stood up. “Yes. Robert Dent. I called ahead.”

  “Yes, I remember now. You’re late, you know.”

  I was about to apologise when he spoke again.

  “I’m Chief Constable Binchley. And I’m afraid I’m running a little late too this morning, Mr. Dent—”

  “I understand I was meant to be here yesterday, but—”

  He held up a hand stopping me dead. “However I can spare you a few minutes. I’ll let you in.”

  I walked to the side of the reception where there was a door. Binchley unlocked it from his side and led me through a tiny office area to an even smaller one, obviously his. He shut the door, and offered me a seat opposite him at a scratched and scored desk.

  “So, how can I help you Mr. Dent?”

  I pulled out my dictaphone, and he shook his head. “I’ll ask that you not switch that on, please. I don’t want my every word recorded,” he said.

  I didn’t argue the toss with him. I put it back inside my coat. Instead I said I’d write my notes with pen and paper.

  “That’s fine,” he said.

  I took a breath. I felt rushed, and I also felt like I wasn’t going to get anything out of Binchley.